Come on now, be reasonable; move the lighter away from the newspaper. All the readers who have patiently endured my past expressions of genius must have realized somewhere between the inane pop culture references and the cheerful, consistent assaults on hippies worldwide that it would someday come to this _ the demon spawn with the face of an onion and the editorial depth of The Onion that insists on popping up in their Lifestyle sections once a month has finally done a column on homosexuality.

Help us Jesus; help us Tom Cruise.

Ah, the 21st-century sexuality. The days of elementary school children not falling into giggles at hearing a rendition of "I Feel Pretty" have long been run through by the spear of affordable cable.

People in other countries are led by sitcoms to believe that the American public accepts homosexuality. Then again, they’re also led to believe that all American women are blond, 5-foot-8 and 120 pounds, and that such women really marry fat, funny, unattractive men.

But the apparent welcome of gays and lesbians into American society still hasn’t really gotten beyond the honeymoon phase.

As a forerunner of the gay-marriage front, let’s run through the heavyweight division of the 2008 presidential candidates and their stands on the subject. Keep in mind, however, that due to unforeseen bouts of saying-and-doing-whatever-they-can-to-get-votes, including-faking-a-Southern-accent (thank you, Hillary), this whole list may be entirely useless in about an hour.

Clinton: opposes gay marriage, favors civil unions. Obama: opposes gay marriage, favors civil unions. Giuliani: opposes gay marriage, favors "domestic partnerships," which is another way of saying will eventually favor civil unions to make everyone shut up. Romney _ do we all get the point, or do I have to waste another half-a-page listing identical policies for 12 "unique" runners?

In short, our future president will almost certainly be willing to give same-sex couples the status and benefits of married couples, so long as we don’t (Morgan Freeman forbid!) actually call it marriage. Apparently it’s not just America’s military that adheres to a strict "Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell" policy.

Homosexuality has become the USA’s latest elephant-in-the-room; pretend it’s not there and maybe it will only rearrange our furniture and go away quietly. We’ll accept them so long as they stay in their nightclubs like good little homosexuals, but the moment they try to step out of the leather pants and into monogamy, we shall take up our Bible and Beat the Sodomizers Firmly Back, Lest They Suck from Our Savior’s Children the Loving Relationships and Tax Reductions which He Alone may grant.

That’s right, gay Americans; Thou Shalt highlight your hair and speak with lisps, and Thou Shalt like it. Verily, and yea.

Gays haven’t truly been accepted as anything more than the actors they’re stereotyped as being; the public is perfectly willing to be entertained by them, to watch their TV shows, and (in the cases of hormonal teenage girls throughout the nation) to imagine fictional males having sex with one another every time the camera turns away. But to accept them as normal? Ludicrous. Immoral. Bad for business.

When we transplant this way of thinking into high school, the social structure of which is built on cliques and stereotypes, the chance of acceptance for teens exploring their sexuality never really has a chance to rise above negative numbers. Come on; we’re talking about a place where "gay" means "stupid," "faggot" means "guy who wouldn’t hack into the school database to change my grades," and "dyke" means "girl who’s out of earshot."

This is complicated by the fact that high school is an extremely sexual place. I know, I know; parents hate hearing this, preps hate hearing this, but it will remain true no matter how a school’s test grades soar or how many times students are told that having unprotected sex will cause gonorrhea, AIDS, racism and global warming. The majority of high schoolers do not, in fact, jump into bed with anything that has a pulse; this means nothing. Ninty percent of what teenagers do that isn’t motivated by anger, boredom, drive to succeed, or traditional spite is motivated subconsciously by nature’s desire for teenagers to work together in creating babies. Lots and lots of babies. As far as our bodies are concerned, the world’s human population is in dire jeopardy of fading from this planet, and the parts covered by our bathing suits or censorship blocks must prevent this from happening. Therein lies the origin of high school’s invisible League of Super Gonads.

So why, in the natural hub of sexual exploration, is homosexuality still such a taboo? Sure, the main reason that most high schoolers are terrified to imagine their locker-room companions au naturale is that those companions would very quickly unite the faces of said high schoolers with the hallway floor. No one’s arguing that; high schoolers are in general a species of unabashedly apathetic, ornery buggers, surpassed in sheer unpleasantness only by middle schoolers. That’s how it is; that’s how it always is. But the silencing spell cast over homosexuality in high schools can be traced back to those whose high school days are (hopefully) far behind them: teachers and parents. I don’t mean to say that teachers deliberately avoid the touchier issues; they’re doing their best. Eating disorders, bullying and sexual harassment have all been flushed into the open "¦ but where is the recognition of sexual identity? Where? Where are the health class presentations about the trials faced by gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transsexuals? Where are the support groups for students who think they might be LGBT? Where are the posters of women kissing, or two men holding hands? When are high schools going to stop fighting discrimination against homosexuals with silence and take up the sword?

Parents are as much to blame as the lax attitudes of the high schools. No matter how "open" a community might claim to be, there will always be an uproar whenever a school district hires an openly lesbian teacher. If my school were to use anti-discrimination posters that featured a homosexual couple holding hands or kissing, I guarantee you someone in the district would appeal immediately for the posters to be taken down. Whenever their children are threatened to be exposed to homosexuality, parents forget every Oprah special about diversity they’ve ever watched, instead becoming strangely attracted to protest marches and burning torches. They’re terrified that their darlings will become "infected," "contaminated" by that most terrible of diseases, homosexuality! That same disease that was perfectly tolerable when they only had to enjoy "Will and Grace" instead of accepting homosexuality into their daily lives.

In April, a Day of Silence was held across America to fight LGBT discrimination. There is a time for silence, and there is a time for action. For gays and lesbians, that time of action has come.

How long will it be until the sexuality identity revolution that’s swept over America trickles down into the small towns, the high schools? How long will it be until we face the fact that to change the lives of homosexuals for the better, we have to change ourselves? Who will be the first to rise?

Jessie Matus is a sophomore at Oneonta High School.